Gotti Review
R: Strong Violence and Pervasive LanguageMoviePass Ventures, Vertical Entertainment1 hr and 45 MinutesDir: Kevin Connolly | Writers: Lem Dobbs, Leo RossCast: John Travolta, Kelly Preston, Stacy Keach, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Spencer Lofranco, William DeMeo, Leo Rossi, Victor Gojcaj
The story of crime boss John Gotti and his son.THE GOODDamn, Travolta. You’re trying. Poor man is doing his best Italian impersonation to solidify his performance, but he just can’t do it. Travolta’s performance in attempt to carry the movie is the equivalent of a 100 lb guy with muscle trying to lift a 200 lb dumbbell. He’s trying his best to do it but the movie is a heavier mess than he can hold.THE BADIronically, I’m taking a class right now for Italian Americans in cinema and holy shit is this the prime example of stereotypical Italian Americans in cinema. Think of every trope from “Goodfellas”, “The Godfather”, “A Bronx Tale”, and so many more and you get this movie. There’s nothing notorious or cool about Gotti for he does everything that a typical monster does. Instead of Travolta he could’ve been replaced by Fat Tony from the Simpsons and there wouldn’t be any difference. That’s how generic John Gotti is.By watching “Gotti”, I’m getting deja vu of watching “All Eyez On Me” all over again. Those may be separate biopics that center on two completely different figures but both movies have the same faults. What I said about “All Eyez on Me” is what I’ll say about “Gotti” where this movie is the equivalent to reading a person's Wikipedia page and adapting it to a film. The way both films breeze through the lives of our center character without any sense of character is exactly the same. The movie starts off as confusingly similar as “All Eyez On Me” where time is not even a concept.The movie opens up with Gotti addressing the audience about how cool he was back in the day and then we go back in time to see how he was in the heyday of his gangster activity. But then, all of a sudden, we cut to a significantly older Gotti (as in Travolta in prosthetics and makeup) in the midst of his narration being interrogated by his son WHERE WE CUT BACK TO GOTTI IN HIS HEYDAY AND THEN HIS FAMILY’S VISITING HIM IN PRISON?!
The entire movie builds up to what led him up to being in prison, yet it opens with him in prison. So what’s the point of this story?? We know what happens to him and the events leading up to his imprisonment are breezed through as if we understand what’s going on, who each character is, and that we even for these characters. You don’t give a shit about any of these characters because they're all your onenote Italian stereotypes.
Director Kevin Connelly (yeah, E from Entourage) does give this story a good cinematic value. The cinematography is decent but the shot composition is terrible. Almost every shot of conversations are noticeably done through handheld. Then, a number of times during a shot, the camera would zoom in midway through. I don’t even know why Connelly would do this, because it doesnt give it a documentary style; the entire movie skims through so many events in Gotti's life while providing nothing but the bland of the blandest tropes of mob movies. Why did “Goodfellas” work? Because Jimmy the Gent had personality and character. It never opened with him already in the slammer recounting the events that led to him being in the slammer. What makes this worse is how it ends with people claiming how this mob boss was the best. Pretty much praising a guy who killed plenty.The film conceitedly thinks that it’s so clever with the events that go on for the build up. It’s padded out for so long that any idiot audience member can sense the predictably from a mile away. There is a sequence where Gotti’s son Frank is hit and killed by a car while riding his tricycle in the street. It’s not surprising or anything because there are over 20 different cuts between the kid, the family in the house minding their business, and the driver. At the point they cut to the kid you’re practically screaming, “JUST HIT HIM ALREADY!” The entire film suffers from sequences like this where it confuses the progression of tension and ends up ultimately being devoid of it.The music usage is abysmal to where they play nothing but classic songs mixed with Pitbull songs. And it’s not just one Pitbull song, but plenty of Pitbull songs. They play “Bad Man” during a sequence where a brawl happens at a diner. But it doesn’t stop there. During a party scene they play “Don’t Stop the Party” and at first it sounds as if it’s playing on a radio but then they play it in the foreground a bit after. Then, right after, you realize THEY ARE PLAYING THE SONG ON THE RADIO. The only way you realize this is when they follow that song with another Pitbull song: “Fireball.” Who the hell thought it was a good idea for the songs featured in this movie be Pitbull songs, especially since this entire story takes place DURING THE LATE 20th CENTURY WHERE MR. WORLDWIDE WAS IN HIS MAMA’S WOMB! You couldn’t be consistent with your music choices?! It shouldn’t be a big issue to find songs from the 50s-90s. But they have to promote Pitbull who wrote a song for the soundtrack and did the music for the movie in a movie where his music doesn’t fit at all. You don’t do that shit in a period piece biopic. The only musician that managed to get away with that was Jay-Z and “Great Gatsby” because it added to the film’s style. Here, it’s just bizarre and often annoying.LAST STATEMENTThough other films are more deserving for a 0% on RT than “Gotti” —- it’s still a colossal dumpster fire mess of a movie that is stringed together by a terrible script and tired gangster film tropes.Rating: 0.5/5 | 16%
